294 research outputs found
Phase transformations in (111) Si after spherical indentation
Phase transformations in (111) Si after spherical indentation have been investigated by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. Even at an indentation load of 20 mN,a phase transformation zone including the high-pressure crystalline Si phases was observed within the residual imprints. The volume of the transformation zone, as well as that of the crystalline phases increased with the indentation load. Below the transformation zone, slip was found to occur on {311} planes rather than on {111}planes, usually observed on indentation of (100) Si. The distribution of defects was asymmetric, and for indentation loads up to 80 mN, their density was significantly lower than that reported for (100) Si. The experimental observations correlated well with modeling of the applied stress through ELASTICA
Transport critical current density in Fe-sheathed nano-SiC doped MgB2 wires
The nano-SiC doped MgB2/Fe wires were fabricated using a powder-in-tube
method and an in-situ reaction process. The depression of Tc with increasing
SiC doping level remained rather small due to the counterbalanced effect of Si
and C co-doping. The high level SiC co-doping allowed creation of the
intra-grain defects and nano-inclusions, which act as effective pinning
centers, resulting in a substantial enhancement in the Jc(H) performance. The
transport Jc for all the wires is comparable to the magnetic Jc at higher
fields despite the low density of the samples and percolative nature of
current. The transport Ic for the 10wt% SiC doped MgB2/Fe reached 660A at 5K
and 4.5T (Jc = 133,000A/cm2) and 540A at 20K and 2T (Jc = 108,000A/cm2). The
transport Jc for the 10wt% SiC doped MgB2 wire is more than an order of
magnitude higher than for the state-the-art Fe-sheathed MgB2 wire reported to
date at 5K and 10T and 20K and 5T respectively. There is a plenty of room for
further improvement in Jc as the density of the current samples is only 50%.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, presented at ASC 2002, Housto
Self-homodyne tomography of a twin-beam state
A self-homodyne detection scheme is proposed to perform two-mode tomography
on a twin-beam state at the output of a nondegenerate optical parametric
amplifier. This scheme has been devised to improve the matching between the
local oscillator and the signal modes, which is the main limitation to the
overall quantum efficiency in conventional homodyning. The feasibility of the
measurement is analyzed on the basis of Monte-Carlo simulations, studying the
effect of non-unit quantum efficiency on detection of the correlation and the
total photon-number oscillations of the twin-beam state.Comment: 13 pages (two-column ReVTeX) including 21 postscript figures; to
appear on Phys. Rev.
Magnetic field processing to enhance critical current densities of MgB2 superconductors
A magnetic field of up to 12T was applied during the sintering process of pure MgB2 and carbon nanotube(CNT)dopedMgB2wires. The authors have demonstrated that magnetic field processing results in grain refinement, homogeneity, and enhancement in Jc(H) and Hirr. The extent of improvement in Jc increases with increasing field. The Jc for a 10T field processed CNTdoped sample increases by a factor of 3 at 10K and 8T and at 20K and 5T, respectively. Hirr for the 10T field processed CNTdoped sample reached 9T at 20K, which exceeded the best value of SiC dopedMgB2 at 20K. Magnetic field processing reduces the resistivity in CNTdopedMgB2, straightens the entangled CNTs, and improves the adherence between CNTs and the MgB2 matrix
Homodyne detection for measuring internal quantum correlations of optical pulses
A new method is described for determining the quantum correlations at
different times in optical pulses by using balanced homodyne detection. The
signal pulse and sequences of ultrashort test pulses are superimposed, where
for chosen distances between the test pulses their relative phases and
intensities are varied from measurement to measurement. The correlation
statistics of the signal pulse is obtained from the time-integrated difference
photocurrents measured.Comment: 7 pages, A4.sty include
Phase-space formulation of quantum mechanics and quantum state reconstruction for physical systems with Lie-group symmetries
We present a detailed discussion of a general theory of phase-space
distributions, introduced recently by the authors [J. Phys. A {\bf 31}, L9
(1998)]. This theory provides a unified phase-space formulation of quantum
mechanics for physical systems possessing Lie-group symmetries. The concept of
generalized coherent states and the method of harmonic analysis are used to
construct explicitly a family of phase-space functions which are postulated to
satisfy the Stratonovich-Weyl correspondence with a generalized traciality
condition. The symbol calculus for the phase-space functions is given by means
of the generalized twisted product. The phase-space formalism is used to study
the problem of the reconstruction of quantum states. In particular, we consider
the reconstruction method based on measurements of displaced projectors, which
comprises a number of recently proposed quantum-optical schemes and is also
related to the standard methods of signal processing. A general group-theoretic
description of this method is developed using the technique of harmonic
expansions on the phase space.Comment: REVTeX, 18 pages, no figure
A genetic risk score is associated with statin-induced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol lowering
To find new genetic loci associated with statin response, and to investigate the association of a genetic risk score (GRS) with this outcome. In a discovery meta-analysis (five studies, 1991 individuals), we investigated the effects of approximately 50000 single nucleotide polymorphisms on statin response, following up associations with p < 1 × 10(-4) (three independent studies, 5314 individuals). We further assessed the effect of a GRS based on SNPs in ABCG2, LPA and APOE. No new SNPs were found associated with statin response. The GRS was associated with reduced statin response: 0.0394 mmol/l per allele (95% CI: 0.0171-0.0617, p = 5.37 × 10(-4)). The GRS was associated with statin response, but the small effect size (˜2% of the average low-density lipoprotein cholesterol reduction) limits applicabilit
Hundreds of variants clustered in genomic loci and biological pathways affect human height
Most common human traits and diseases have a polygenic pattern of inheritance: DNA sequence variants at many genetic loci influence the phenotype. Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have identified more than 600 variants associated with human traits, but these typically explain small fractions of phenotypic variation, raising questions about the use of further studies. Here, using 183,727 individuals, we show that hundreds of genetic variants, in at least 180 loci, influence adult height, a highly heritable and classic polygenic trait. The large number of loci reveals patterns with important implications for genetic studies of common human diseases and traits. First, the 180 loci are not random, but instead are enriched for genes that are connected in biological pathways (P = 0.016) and that underlie skeletal growth defects (P < 0.001). Second, the likely causal gene is often located near the most strongly associated variant: in 13 of 21 loci containing a known skeletal growth gene, that gene was closest to the associated variant. Third, at least 19 loci have multiple independently associated variants, suggesting that allelic heterogeneity is a frequent feature of polygenic traits, that comprehensive explorations of already-discovered loci should discover additional variants and that an appreciable fraction of associated loci may have been identified. Fourth, associated variants are enriched for likely functional effects on genes, being over-represented among variants that alter amino-acid structure of proteins and expression levels of nearby genes. Our data explain approximately 10% of the phenotypic variation in height, and we estimate that unidentified common variants of similar effect sizes would increase this figure to approximately 16% of phenotypic variation (approximately 20% of heritable variation). Although additional approaches are needed to dissect the genetic architecture of polygenic human traits fully, our findings indicate that GWA studies can identify large numbers of loci that implicate biologically relevant genes and pathways.
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